National Hot Rods (part 1)
Organiser: Spedeworth When: August 26 Where: Foxhall Heath Starters: 26.
Bank Holiday Monday meetings at Foxhall have something of a reputation for being a bit of a crash-fest and the August date this year certainly stuck with tradition.
It was fairly controversial from start to finish, with Lee Carlin – on-the-road inner of both heats – getting dropped places which lost him the wins, one to Lance Bowen, the other to Shane Bland.
Bland then went on to win the final by the usual method, but not before a wreck- strewn second heat had decimated the field.
It was Bowen who took charge of the first race before losing out to Carlin along the back stretch.
Bowen always managed to stay in touch until the finish was virtually in sight, by which time Carlin had finally opened out a sizeable gap.
It was all for naught however, a subsequent penalty for contact putting Bowen back into first place and providing him with his first ever National Hot Rod win.
It was heat two when the extreme heat of the day looked as though it was starting to tell. This time Jason Norris (leading) and Bowen were the pacesetters over the first lap or so, but this was when things went pear shaped. Peter Elliott spun exiting Turn 4 and got T-boned by the closely following Jason Kew in his Ginetta G40R.
In trying to avoid them, Aaron
Dew cannoned into Chris Haird.
With several of the damaged cars already limping away from the scene no yellow flags came out, but when Brett Collison rotated at the same spot on the next lap it kicked off big style, with at least nine cars involved this time.
After a necessarily lengthy clean-up operation, a much reduced field set off again through the oil treatment dust, Norris still in charge from Bowen.
Bowen took over at the front leaving Norris fending off Mikey Godfrey and Carlin, at which point they came under caution again after
Scott Bourne, Alistair Lowe and Dick Hillard all collided on the back straight.
Carlin made an absolute flyer of a restart, far too good in fact, as he was actually ahead of the lead car when they passed the start/finish. He was chased home by eventual winner Bland, a penalty for that start having always been inevitable.
Just 15 of the original runners were still fit to come under starter’s orders for the final. Even then, they still managed to trip over one another, an early yellow coming from Bowen spinning and getting involved with Stuart Mclaird.
When they got going more permanently it was Carlin versus Bland for the top spot. Bland looked marginally quicker but couldn’t quite make any of his outside passes stick, their dice allowing Perry Cooke to close in and mount his own challenge.
Spurred on by that, Bland finally got ahead just before half distance, his place in the scrap for positions being taken by Terry Hunn. With Bland pulling away, the other three carried on the fight to be second until Hunn went out with a blown diff, Carlin just keeping Cooke at bay to the flag.
There were plenty of penalties incurred during the day apart from Carlin’s jumped start, with no less than three disqualifications for contact or causing crashes in that second heat, plus another for David York in the final (contact that spun Haird) plus the loss of a couple of places for returnee Bradley Dynes.
Results
Heat 1: 1 Lance Bowen (Vauxhall Tigra); 2 David York (Vauxhall Tigra); 3 Lee Carlin (Vauxhall Tigra); 4 Mikey Godfrey (Vauxhall Tigra); 5 Terry Hunn (Ford Fiesta); 6 Jack Blood (Vauxhall Tigra); 7 Chris Haird (Vauxhall Tigra); 8 Shane Bland (Vauxhall Tigra). Heat two: 1 Bland; 2 Hunn; 3 Carlin; 4 Godfrey; 5 Perry Cooke (Vauxhall Tigra); 6 Stuart Mclaird (Ginetta G40R); 7 Bradley Dynes (Vauxhall Tigra); 8 Bowen. Final: 1 Bland; 2 Carlin; 3 Cooke; 4 Haird; 5 Aaron Dew (Ginetta G40R); 6 Godfrey; 7 Dynes; 8 Carl Waller-barrett (Vauxhall Tigra); 9 Alistair Lowe (Vauxhall Tigra). Points (after 3/14 rounds): 1 Bland 129; 2 Waller-barrett 123; 3= Mclaird, Jason Kew (Ginetta G40R) 106; 5= Godfrey, Cooke 104.